COURIER-JOURNAL

HOT COFFEE TO OPEN IN PORTLAND NEIGHBORHOOD

by Dana McMahan, Special to The Courier-Journal NuLu bakery and coffee shop Please & Thank You (@plsthnks) will open a Portland location at 231 N. 17th St. next week. The shop, called Hot Coffee, will hold its soft opening Tuesday. A ribbon cutting and grand opening with Mayor Greg Fischer will take place Feb. 2 at 2 p.m., according to co-owner Brooke Vaughn.

"Our kitchen was way too small to accommodate our wholesale needs, and there's not a lot of room to grow in NuLu," Vaughn says. "And, especially, there's a price tag on it. With Gill Holland and his launch of everyone hopefully expanding west, he helped me find this building and secure a loan with Louisville Metro and we were able to get into what used to be a Butternut Bakery — quickly and affordably."

Why open a walk-up window in January? "I didn't want to open till after winter," Vaughn concedes, "but it feels selfish and people are curious … I have guys coming in asking to buy cookies." They've been giving away pastries for the last couple of weeks, she says.

Hot Coffee will serve as the P&TY bakehouse, plus offer a walk-up window with the same espresso drinks as the NuLu shop; pastries and to-go fare including waffles, oatmeal, breakfast panini and yogurt parfaits; and coffee service, including drip, pour-over, Americano and French press. "We're definitely selling a cup of coffee for under $2, which I think no one doing locally roasted does anymore," says Vaughn.

Vaughn is enjoying the additional space; the new space is some 1,300 square feet, "and it's all kitchen!" she says, while the entire NuLu shop is around 1,000, with five to nine people working all the time. "It feels very luxurious to have space," she says.

That space has allowed for some experimentation, and new pastries like Linzer cookies have shown up at P&TY. They've also been testing a Benton country ham and cheese hand pie. "We'll be a little bit more whimsical with our offerings because we can," Vaughn says. "I'm excited about what's coming." Soft pretzels with beer cheese are in the works, nachos are down the road, and, she says, "we got a soft serve machine I am super excited about — but I'm not doing it in January!"